GAVIN HUTTON

CONTRIBUTOR

Gavin recently moved house and to get over the stress he’s treated his woody to a pair of carbs and a tune-up. Brakes are now next!

Ifinished the last update on my woody saying that I intended lowering it and changing the wheels, I even had all the bits ready. But then a photoshoot was set up for which I was expected to present a standard car, which obviously delayed those mods.

Ordinarily, I’d want to sort out the brakes before making power upgrades but sometimes you have to go with the flow. We were shortly going to move house and my wife was concerned about the amount of stuff in the garage, and how difficult it would be moving it all in a morning together with the house contents. So I did the honourable thing and booked woody into Interpro for a bit of work so that they had the car while we moved.

The general aim is to carry out some period mods, and since it’s a rare car it feels like the rarer the parts the better. So when I came across some Stromberg carbs on an Alexander manifold it seemed the ideal starting point. I wanted to make the car more drivable and usable so the first priority was to get it converted to run unleaded .That seemed like the perfect opportunity to also get the carbs fitted. So I dropped the car off, went through an agonising house move, then picked up a lovely, silky smooth Cortina. There was of course a little more to it than that.

On point

With the aim of making the car more usable there were a few more changes thrown into the mix. It seemed sensible to convert to electronic ignition to get away from those pesky points. So a suitable replacement distributor was sourced from the Mk1 Cortina Owners’ Club. Next on the list was an alternator to replace the dynamo to help keep the battery properly charged. Sourced from 105speed (they do Pre-Crossflow parts suitable for Cortinas, too) it’s a direct replacement which even came with a replacement voltage regulator which includes a fuse in the charging circuit — imagine that, a Mk1 Cortina with a fuse! While ordering parts from 105speed I also bought a replacement starter motor. Manufactured by WOSP Performance specifically for 105Speed, it’s a high-torque starter which I thought would improve starting over the lazy original starter. I figured all this wouldn’t tax the battery so much and aimed to replace the existing battery with a period looking Shield unit, but I don’t think driving to Yeovil to pick it up can be justified as an essential trip at the moment so the Halfords unit has to stay in place for a while longer.

The last bit of the jigsaw was a replacement exhaust — improving the

“IT’S A RARE CAR, SO THE RARER THE TUNING PARTS, THE BETTER”

breathing on the inlet side seemed pointless if the manifold remained as original. I already had a Piper manifold which wasn’t exactly period, but coated black and sat under the carbs it’s not noticeable. The only problem was that a system wasn’t available for an estate, but since Interpro are Longlife agents that was easily solved by them.

Absolute power

All of that was expertly fitted by Interpro, including the required head work and bespoke throttle linkage, and set up on their rolling road which recorded a heady 77 bhp! That figure is irrelevant though, I’m not chasing power, this is not a performance car it’s an old estate car with bench seat and column change. Instead I was after something more drivable which I now have, and at the same time the engine bay has a more classy period style. When I picked it up it fired immediately, and with a much more purposeful sound, so much so it actually made me jump! And the fact I can fill up with unleaded without carrying round that little plastic bottle in the glovebox is the real bonus. The question now remains — how many of those 77 ponies should I deploy with drum brakes all round?